I've seen most of these but it has been a long time since I have, so it's always good to see if my opinion of them still holds up. I'm always holding out hope that the one I haven't seen is going to blow me away and make my efforts worth it. We shall see.
1997 Best Supporting Actress
Kim Basinger - L.A. Confidential
It's easy to forget that Kim Basinger is an Oscar winner but here she is. Basinger plays a prostitute that looks like Veronica Lake and plays the love interest in the film. Basinger has the look and the sex appeal down pat and has a very coolly reserved demeanor. She is essentially the hooker with a heart of gold character and Basinger does a good job of making her character into a sympathetic one. She's a calming influence on some of the male characters like Russell Crowe's angry cop, who falls in love with her after a chance meeting. It seems that part of her purpose is to bring the sexual intrigue into a film that brings plenty of intrigue in from elsewhere in the story. Both Crowe and Guy Pearce sleep with her, yet we don't look at her like she's a prostitute thanks in large part to Basinger's performance. It's a very calm, breathy take on a woman who gets paid for sex but is much more than that as evidenced by the talks she has with Crowe. She's very sweet and mild tempered even when she's involved in things that are going out of control around her. Basinger provides that calming bit of sanity in an insane Los Angeles and even though her character doesn't do much, she nails what is asked of her. It's an easily likable performance because while Basinger is extremely sexy, she's able to hold her own against some real top notch acting performances. She doesn't look out of place in the film and doesn't look that out of place as an Oscar winner.
Joan Cusack - In & Out
I've been on record saying that I love seeing comedic roles get recognition from the Academy because it's a seriously untapped well for great performances. Cusack plays a comedic role but I wouldn't call it a great performance by any means. This film is a little strange as it is meant to lampoon the idea of being gay as an issue in our society. It pokes fun at Tom Hanks' acceptance speech for Philadelphia where he talked about his gay teacher and classmate. Something similar happens in this movie and Cusack plays the fiancee of Kevin Kline's possibly gay character. It's strange because the tone is very lighthearted yet it can be borderline offensive at times with it's jokes about gay people and gay stereotypes. I'm not sure this movie would fly at all in 2016 because it would probably be protested by all the social justice goobers. But I guess in 1997 it was kind of a big thing as one of the first mainstream movies to deal with the gay issue and had a long kiss between Tom Selleck and Kevin Kline. So okay, fine, I think the movie is weird in the handling of it's subject but how is Cusack? Well, she's in the movie for one thing. It's not a meaty part at all and the movie itself is pretty short at just 90 minutes. She gets to react to the news that her fiance is called out as gay on a worldwide telecast and then she gets jilted at the altar. Up until that point, she doesn't do a whole lot other than play the fiancee. Once jilted, she kinda hams it up (it is a comedy) and acts very loudly and broadly and kinda wallows in her misery. There's some funny moments in the movie and Cusack herself is funny at times but the performance just can't really sustain itself beyond her yelling and weeping. Then she gets together with her ex-student who won an Oscar and called out her fiance as gay because he is okay if she goes back to being fat. You can see what I mean by it being strange. I don't really think this is a very good nomination but maybe they wanted to reward this film in some small way. But hey, we could have gotten something much worse to watch, right?
Minnie Driver - Good Will Hunting
I have to say I'm disappointed with this character. Not because of anything Driver did, but because the character could have had so much more depth to her like the rest of her male co-stars. It seems unfair that she gets saddled with the love interest role and that's really the extent of her character. Yes, Driver was a conduit for showing Matt Damon's softer, gentler, human side but she didn't have to be so one dimensional. Driver plays the smart, pretty British chick who goes to Harvard and falls for the guy from the other side of the tracks. That's a generic role but Driver does do a lot to make it her own. She excels at being the lighthearted, care free, flirty chick that isn't the prototypical Harvard girl one would normally think of. She's the sexy nerd that can also hang with the boys and tell some dirty jokes, too. She's essentially the perfect woman/girlfriend/love interest. That all sounds cliche and it really sort of is, but Driver brings a spark to her performance. She lights up the banal character with some legit chemistry with herself. That sounds so pretentious to say but what I mean is, is that she's super comfortable as the character and it shows in the natural performance she gives. She and Damon are pretty terrific together even with her big square jaw getting in the way. Driver tries to do a little bit more with her unoriginal role even though the story let's her down and doesn't allow her to break out. Obviously the Academy loved it and allowed her to break out anyway. It's a good performance in an unfortunate role.
Julianne Moore - Boogie Nights
Here is the first of Moore's Oscar nominations, the one that set her down the path to be nominated every couple years and made her an Oscar darling. She plays a porn actress, the main girl for Burt Reynolds' stable of porn actors. Just like in a lot of her other films, Moore portrays a damaged woman who does porn and has a cocaine addiction but also longs for her kid (or kids, I was never clear on that) in a custody battle she loses. Moore plays the desperate, drug addled mother but on the flip side she is also this big porn star who takes Dirk Diggler under her wing like he is her child even though they have sex. She has this motherly component to her that comes out in dealing with the other porn stars on set and in real life because they look up to her like she's the head of the household. So Moore is balancing these two different versions of her character for the entire film and definitely pulls it off. I liked her performance but I also would have liked to see more screen time devoted to her story. That was never going to happen since it's all about Dirk Diggler but Moore gave a compelling performance that made you want to get a little deeper inside her character. The impressive thing is that Moore had a lot to do with limited screen time and makes her character stand out in a good way because of her efforts. It's a good performance in a really interesting film about family and being with people that accept you despite all their flaws.
Gloria Stuart - Titanic
This is what you would call a veteran nomination and honestly there's nothing wrong about that here. This definitely got swept up along with all the Titanic hype but at least Stuart's character and performance drives the story. She plays the older Rose in the present day and tells her story of what happened on the ship which is what we watch for three hours. She does a fine job as it would be really difficult to screw up being the catalyst for a film when all you have to do is set it up and narrate every now and then. She does have a little bit of charisma in the way that an old woman telling a story about her life should command attention, so it's not a completely wasted nomination. But it is what it is: a brief performance that any old lady could have done nominated solely because the film was so popular. I don't mind the nomination but hopefully this didn't keep out something more deserving. Interesting that this was the first time two actors were nominated for playing the same person but at different ages and Winslet did it again years later with Iris. She remains the oldest nominated person in the acting categories so I guess I can't be too harsh on her. So just chalk this one up to Titanic and leave it at that.
We go from 1998 being such a lackluster year to 1997 giving us some pretty good and interesting performances, which was much needed. I can't take going from awful year to awful year. The more I think about Basinger's performance, the more I like it for whatever reason that I can't quite describe. I think it just fits perfectly into that film. So I'm with the Academy on that one. Then would come Moore who was good in her role but if she would have had a bit more to do she might have ended up winning and that would have upset the apple cart years down the line for sure. Driver is in the middle because besides being the love interest, she doesn't get much chance to shine. The role lets her down but I still liked her in it. Stuart is probably where she should be for what amounts to a veteran cameo type nomination, which was not bad at all. My last spot is Cusack because I just didn't get that performance at all. She's loud and whiny and not really Oscar worthy to me. I'll take a year like this after what I got from 1998, I just hope 1996 will be even better.
Oscar Winner: Kim Basinger - L.A. Confidential
My Winner: Kim Basinger - L.A. Confidential
Julianne Moore
Minnie Driver
Gloria Stuart
Joan Cusack
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